“I’m very impressed. I bet they taste as good as they look.” And Ben’s heroic effort to spend time with the girls impressed her more.
“They do!” Both girls spoke together, shared a glance and shouted, “Jinx!”
Kezia’s fingers clenched the top of a dining chair. It would break Zoe’s heart when Jade went home. She’d already made half-baked plans to fly them to Auckland next school holidays—assuming Marci would allow the girls’ friendship to continue.
Didn’t that thought sour Kezia’s good mood?
“How many cupcakes have you girls eaten?” she asked instead.
“They’ve had one each because we burned the bottoms on the first batch.” Ben walked past them into the kitchen and leaned over the counter to crank open another window.
Kezia sniffed again. “Ah. That’s what I can smell.”
He turned back. “Yeah, I did a ‘Piper’ with the oven temperature and had it up too high. Lesson learned.”
A stripe of flour crossed the fly of his blue jeans where he’d pressed his body against the dusty counter edge. Her brain, apparently, held far too much fascination for the man’s groin area. Wasn’t that a lesson she should’ve learned by now? Stop staring at Ben. Staring led to dangerous encounters.
“We saved you a cupcake, Mamma. You have to try it—it’s really good.”
Her attention returned to Zoe, who fortunately hadn’t noticed her mother crushing on her friend’s father like a lovesick schoolgirl.
“It looks divine.” Though how she’d choke down cupcake crumbs with such a dry throat, she didn’t know.
“Dad showed us how to make coffee in the coffee machine—you want one with your cupcake, Kezia?” Jade asked.
“Oh, well I—”
“Please, Mamma? Jade and I can play one more game of Cluedo while you have afternoon tea. She promised me I could be Miss Scarlett this time—please.”
Kezia glanced at her watch. “Ben’s probably too busy—”
“Not busy at all.” Ben shoved his hands into his jean pockets, emphasizing the floury arrow. Her gaze flicked up to his and he grinned knowingly. “I could murder a decent coffee.”
“You and Ben sit on the deck, and we’ll pretend you’re customers in a café and bring you coffee,” said Zoe.
“And cupcakes!” added Jade. “Everything’s better with cupcakes.”
Ben swept a hand toward the deck’s sliding door. Unwilling to ruin what had obviously been a wonderful day for Zoe, Kezia walked outside.
Halfmoon Bay harbor sparkled in the distance and the crop of boats—fishing boats, sailing boats, and dinghies—rolled gently on the waves. From one of the neighboring houses came the rhythmic chop-pause-chop of kindling being split for winter. She sucked in a lungful of clean, uniquely Stewart Island air and lowered herself into a deck chair angled to get the best harbor views.
Ben remained in the kitchen, giving last minute instructions. The deep timbre of his voice flowed over her, soothing away some rough edges. She’d forgotten the comfort of a man puttering barefoot around the kitchen, making coffee at the end of a busy day.
Not that in her past life as an architect’s wife she had many days of Callum arriving home before her. And in the year before he died, the year Zoe got sick and her world shattered into jagged pieces she couldn’t glue together again—well…Callum hadn’t come home early at all.
Ben stepped outside and sat in the opposite chair.
Drumming her nails on the glass patio table between them, Kezia sighed. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For playing with the girls. I can see they had a wonderful day with you.”
He chuckled. “It was cupcakes or Barbies. I figured cupcakes would do a lot less damage to my reputation.”
“Your reputation?”
Hardly a question. Since she’d moved to Oban and had been welcomed into Shaye’s group of friends, the topic of eligible men had come up often in their get-togethers. Out of deference to the Harland sisters, the comments about their big brother had been fairly tame. But after the parking-lot rescue, the girls had a lot more to say on the subject of Ben.
A lot more.
“Heartless womanizer’s been tossed around.” Ben scratched the line of stubble along the taut curve of his jaw. “Also cold-fish, commitment-phobe, oh—and stronzo’s been thrown out there too.”
He surprised a laugh out of her.
Before she could comment, Jade walked toward them, a plate bearing two cupcakes clasped in her hands.
“Ben made these ones.” She carefully placed the plate on the table. “One for him and one for you. His is the boring one ‘cause he said he’s allergic to sprinkles.” Jade rolled her eyes.
“It’s very pretty…thank you.”
Being a mum and a teacher meant using manners in front of children, even when a pink-iced cupcake with a wobbly, heart-shaped outline filled in with sprinkles made her blood thrum faster. Of course, the heart didn’t mean anything.
“We’ll bring the coffee real soon.” Jade skipped inside.
“Does it get me off the hook for covering you in mud the other day?”
Kezia peeled away the cupcake’s liner and broke off a small piece. “This is your way of apologizing?”
“Gifts of food work for guys. If we even bother apologizing.”
“You’re forgiven for the mud.” She popped the cupcake chunk into her mouth. It was dry and crumbly, but she gamely chewed and swallowed.
“But not for hugging you in public, right?”
She shook her head, more to banish the memory of heat and excitement as he held her close, than to disagree. “I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.”
“About us.”
“There is no us.”
He checked over his shoulder to make sure the girls remained out of hearing range. “There could be an ‘us’. I’m attracted to you, Kez, I can’t deny it. And you can’t deny you’re attracted right back.”
She swiped a swirl of frosting off the cupcake and licked her finger, sighing as the sugary sweetness coated her tongue. “I’m not denying it.”
“So if you’re not denying it . . .?” His eyes went darkly serious. “Is this about your husband? He was a banker, wasn’t he?”
“No, an architect. And he’s been gone nearly five years.”
“Are you over him? Shit—” Ben scrubbed a hand over his face. “Stupid thing to say. You never get over a loss like that, right?”
“No. You don’t get over the loss, but you adjust and grow stronger—one day after another, you learn to live with it.”
“You still think about him all the time?”
“Not anymore.” And when she did think of Callum, she no longer dissolved into a weepy mess. “I don’t see him around every corner now and I’ve done my years of wearing black.”
“You’re ready to move on.” A statement, not a question.
She could lie, tell him she still clung to Callum’s memory and couldn’t consider being with another man. But that would be cowardly, and completely untrue. She’d considered being with Ben far more than she ought to in recent days.
“I have moved on, Ben.”
His brown eyes sparked with triumph. “Then let’s have some fun—see where it leads.”
“Where do these things usually lead, mmm?”
He grinned—a wicked grin with his dimple used to devastating effect.
“Precisely. I have no intention of ending up there.” She pointed a finger. “Unlike the women you usually hook up with, I don’t do casual…encounters.”
“Ouch. Shaye and her friends have trashed my reputation.”
The girls interrupted by carrying mugs of coffee onto the deck. Ben pulled his long legs in to let them pass. His knee brushed hers, and she straightened, crossing her legs to avoid any more accidental contact.
“There you go.” Jade set a mug in front of Ben.
“Brilliant,” Ben said. “Now, I guess you’ll want a tip?”
Ben fished around his jeans pockets, shrugged, and cocked an imaginary pistol at Jade. “Here’s a tip. It’s always Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the revolver—now scram!”
Both girls groaned and flounced through to the family room. Kezia bit back a smile at her daughter’s cynical, “Your dad’s so lame sometimes,” and Jade’s long-suffering, “I know.”
Kezia glanced at Ben, having failed to keep the smile off her lips. He’d surprised her over the past ten days. As much as he denied understanding kids or wanting to be a father, he’d made amazing progress with Jade.
He raised an eyebrow and leaned on the table. Beneath the sleeves of his white tee shirt, biceps bunched. “So. We were talking about sex.”
Ignoring the flush of heat from the images those words conjured up, Kezia said, “You’re a dad now. You have responsibilities too.”
His eyes narrowed. “That responsibility flies to Auckland Sunday morning. I’ll be a free agent again.”
“But you’ll make adjustments to be involved in Jade’s life—now that you know you’ve got a daughter, won’t you?”
He picked up his coffee, took a sip. “Yeah, of course. I’ll buy her a cheap cell, so she can ring whenever she wants. Get Marci to put her on a plane back here for a couple of weeks in the Christmas school holidays or something. She’s a good kid. We’ll keep in touch.”
The last mouthful of frosting turned bitter, and the heat burgeoning in her belly snuffed out. “Keep in touch? She’s not a friend of a friend you’ve added to your Facebook contacts—she’s your daughter!”
Ben’s face froze. He pushed his coffee mug aside. “What would you have me do?” His voice was a razor slashed through ice. “She lives in Auckland, I live at the other end of the country. Should I sell up and move nine hundred miles away, so I can take Jade to the zoo or the mall every other weekend?”
“I don’t know what the answer is—but a cellphone and a once-a-year visit isn’t enough.”
“Isn’t enough for who? Do you still think Jade and I will somehow turn into you and Zoe? The perfect mini family.”
Kezia flinched. “We’re not perfect, but my daughter comes before anything else.”
“Even your own happiness?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been down that road. Putting my mother, my sister, hell, even my mate’s happiness first. Martyr-hood wears you down. Sometimes you need to do something to make just you happy.”
“And you’d make me happy?”
“I’d make you very happy.” The deep rumble of his voice promised all sorts of decadent things.
Only they were really temporary things. Things that would lead to catastrophe, because even though Ben was oh-so-wrong for her? She couldn’t deny wanting him. But wanting bred the danger of needing, and hidden between need and want lay a slippery pit where she could fall in love and never get out.
“You’re like this frosting.” She swiped another swirl of it on her finger, stood and leaned forward to touch it to his bottom lip. “Pretty, momentarily pleasurable, but with no real substance or sustenance.”
Ben surged out of his chair, blocking her path. She tried to edge around the table but he captured her gaze and held it while he licked the sweetness off his lip.
“I tempt you,” he said.
Broad shoulders carved from solid muscle, the corded lines of his throat working as he swallowed, the slight swell of pecs pushing against his thin cotton shirt...tempted? Merda. He tempted her beyond all sanity.
“Touch me,” he said.
“No.” Yet her fingers flexed with the need to bury themselves in his thick, sandy hair and pull him closer still.
“How long since you’ve touched a man, Kez?”
Before she could formulate a reply, he snatched up her hand and held it to his chest. “I’m the first one in a long, long time, aren’t I?”
The heat pumping off his skin and into her palm dizzied her. She wanted to yank her fingers from his grasp, but her muscles rebelled.
Ben rubbed his thumb lightly over her wrist. Shivers skated up her spine.
“Aren’t I?”
She licked dry lips. “Yes.”
He dragged her fingertips over the smooth ridges of his chest and down to the defined bumps of his abs, until the heel of her palm hit the waistband of his jeans. His other hand feathered up her arm, danced across her shoulder and cupped her nape. Dropping his head, he brushed the lightest of kisses on her mouth, his brown eyes open and focused on hers the whole time.
She went liquid. Knees, mouth, and especially between her legs.
“Touch me,” he said again.
And he let go of her wrist, slid his hands into her hair.
Nerves in her lips tingled as Ben continued to tease with fluttery, undemanding kisses. Passion warred with common sense as her fingertips played with the metal button on his jeans. Common sense demanded she take her hand away, but passion drugged her system until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think about not touching him.
Ben pulled back from nuzzling her lower lip and pinned her with an unreadable stare. He no longer forced her hand to remain on his body, and they both knew it. The points of his pupils darkened as her fingers dropped from his jeans. Her thumb and forefinger spread either side of his erection, tracing its length. His eyes widened, then hooded. The barrier of denim wasn’t thick enough to mask his size, and the roar of a lawnmower cranking up somewhere down the hill wasn’t loud enough to drown out his low moan.
Pressing his forehead gently to hers, he rocked into her touch. Her palm flattened over the fly of his jeans, and a bolt of pure, feminine pleasure fired into her core. Such power he’d given her. Simply by caressing him, she ached in places that had been numb for far too long.
Her mouth parted and her hips swayed forward, her other hand clutching the bare skin of his arm.
“Kez,” he said, her name a groan and a plea as the rough stubble around his mouth grazed her jaw and his fingers tightened in her hair.
Her hand stilled. She was intimately groping a man with her daughter playing close by. The sick realization sliced through the lust-fog clouding her brain. She jerked away. Ben’s fingernails caught in her curls, yanking a few strands painfully from her scalp.
“I have to go.” She stumbled past him, tears prickling the corners of her eyes.
“Kezia—”
“No, I’m sorry.”
She speed-walked into the house and yelled for Zoe so the raw longing in Ben’s voice didn’t tempt her a second time.
***
Ben accepted a beer from his position behind the barbecue and wished Kezia, not West, handed it to him. Which was plain pathetic.
He viciously turned a sausage.
“Good idea of Glenna’s.” West sprawled on the padded bench that ran the length of The Mollymawk’s stern deck. “Jade got such a kick outta catching her first fish.”
“Can’t believe she’s never been fishing before.” Another sausage flipped onto its side sizzled and spat oil.
His mother and Piper, plus Jade and Zoe, remained warm and snug inside the cabin. As a guy, of course, he was up for barbecue duty. Didn’t matter the temperature made his balls retract—someone had to cook up the two kawhai Jade caught earlier.
Since Jade was leaving tomorrow, his mother insisted they go on a family fishing trip. He hadn’t needed much coaxing once she mentioned inviting the Murphys along. Worked for him. You betcha.
Except Kezia hadn’t shown up. Shaye dropped Zoe off with them that morning with Kezia’s apologies. She had a headache.
Pah. Headache-shmedache.
Yesterday, she’d been snowed with teaching stuff and far too busy to talk to him. Thursday, she had the girls again. When he stopped by to pick up Jade after dinner, guard-dog Shaye gave him the stink-eye—Kez was enjoying a bubble bath, do not disturb.
Hint taken.
West sipped his beer. “Pity Kezia couldn’t come, huh?”
Ben grunted, turning the final sausages since the girls refused to eat the “poor little fishes” Jade caught.
“Real pity,” West added.
Ben cut him a glance and cracked open his bottle. He downed half, then belched, loud and proud. Take that—hot Italian woman who wouldn’t spend the day in his company because she had a headache.
“Better out than in?”
“You know it.”
“No woman around to give you the look.” West shook his head, blue eyes gleaming.
Ben took another gulp of beer. Speaking of looks…He’d seen the one on West’s face before and needed to fortify his gut for the grilling ahead. Wait for it…wait for it.
“So. You and Kez, huh?”
“Drop it, West.”
West laughed. “Fuck no. Not after the grief you gave me about your sister.”
Yeah. West wouldn’t drop it. Ben flipped more sausages, resisting the urge to shove one in his mate’s big gob to shut it.
“Benny-boy’s sniffing after the hot school teacher. Woo-hoo.” West stretched out on the bench seat and tilted his head to the sky, a big-ass dopey grin on his face.
Should’ve known his sisters would be onto his interest in Kezia like gossip-seeking missiles. “Your fiancée’s got a big mouth.”
“Jealous ‘cause you can’t talk to women?”
Ben snorted. “Actions speak louder than words, mate.”
“Well, hell!” West folded upright and bounced to his feet. “Didn’t know you’d gotten that far.”
“This topic is officially closed, so shut up, and drink your damn beer.”
“That tells me you’re not chasing Kez for a booty call then.” West pointed the neck of his bottle at him with a level stare.
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“Don’t believe it for a second. You wouldn’t mess with a local woman if you were only looking for a casual screw.”
The muscles along Ben’s shoulders corded with tension. First rule for guys living in a tiny community? Don’t bang women who live nearby. When you blew them off for wanting wedding bells and shit, they often went ten kinds of crazy. And on an island, there was no frickin’ way to escape.
Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) Page 9
